


110

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Enhances original, Characters - Well-handled emotions, General, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Can't stop reading, Plot - Fast moving, War of the Ring, Writing - Clear prose, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Experimental, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boromir's journey from Gondor to Rivendell. An experimental mix of prose and poetry. Some stream-of-consciousness, some free verse.</p><p>
  <b>2005 MEFA Award Winner: 3rd place, Men category</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	110

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

_Sirens luring_  
Danger calls  
Led on by flighted dreams, wing-tipped up up up  
Count the scars, lacing around the paunch  
An orc-arrow here, here, and here  
Osgiliath routine… 

_Sleeping and waking, one day,_  
Laughing maniacal  
“A dream, brother? A dream!”  
It is easy to discount.  
“Never trust in dreams, little brother.” 

The first night, he finds an inn. The accent is thick here – already Rohirric lilting. Strange to decipher in his weariness. Yet he manages to explain, eat, seek information, pay. Upstairs, the mattress creaks as he lowers himself onto it. And as he sinks down, his heart begins to thump madly, thumping, thumping, thumping… Telling him this is madness, and this is a fool’s errand, and if only Faramir had not invested so much significance in a nonsensical dream, he would not be here in his stead. Humoring a younger brother’s fancy. This is time wasted. His heart thumps louder, for he can see the precious time falling away, and he imagines Osgiliath conquered, and Ithilien in flames, and orcs widespread, and he wonders if he told the young lieutenant of the southern flank’s vulnerability…

Eventually, he falls asleep.

_Lost and found_  
Seeking amidst the trampled and overgrown  
Heavy silence in the air  
Whispered reminders  
Whispered names  
The horse snorts, clops a foot down,  
And he laughs,  
“Aye, ‘twas my thought exactly!  
Why, these elves,  
They hide themselves amidst the trees!  
And how may a Man find them?” 

The thirty-first night, he sleeps in the rain. A flat stone by some fallen boulders, a makeshift shelter. But not enough shelter, no, not enough. He unrolls the slopping blanket, pulls it over himself in a futile effort to block out this torrential storm. Still in his chain mail, for he is too weary to remove it, burrowing down into the hard earth. The ribs still trouble him from the light bruising, not three days ago, when the horse slipped and threw him. He lies on his side, the good side, feeling his breathing shallow, constricted. Rain, rain, rain thundering down, muffling his thoughts, drenching the blanket and bedroll and pack and everything. Softening the earth to mud.

Tonight he does not think of Osgiliath or Minas Tirith or battle-strategy or his brother or this fool’s errand. He thinks only of how the mud is soaking through his bedroll, and the chain mail is digging into his wet garments, stifling, clinching, and how his ribs ache, and how this is uncharted territory and he should have reached Tharbad by now…

_Greyflood_  
Grey skies, grey water, grey horse  
Rain, rain, still raining,  
It has been raining for a week  
The horse slips, snorts, clops  
Moss-covered stones and water up to the thighs  
He leads on, tugs, urges,  
Soothing,  
“Come now, come on,  
Not halfway through yet,  
Steady now…”  
And water sloshing over bridge-remains,  
Spraying up,  
Deeper, deeper, deeper,  
Water up to his chest now,  
Chain mail dragging,  
Momentary panic – Osgiliath reminders Osgiliath drowning brother two others and bridges collapsing orc arrows drowning drowning drowning and and and… 

_A slip,_  
High-pitched shriek,  
High-pitched wail,  
High-pitched fear,  
Fear in its purest form,  
Others, there are others, riding forth,  
Thundering! 

_One, two, three, four  
Five, six, seven, eight…_

_Nine!_

_Nine!_

_The Nine!_

The seventy-eighth night he is jolted awake by something. A high-pitched shriek. A high-pitched wail. Cold sweat. Shivering in the dark. But no, the Nine have passed, the Nine have passed, gone, gone, gone… No reason to fear. No fear. The epithet still stands – he is still the Bold, the Tall, the Brave. Nine will not weaken such a Man. But nonetheless, he burrows himself deeper into the blanket, nearly pulling it over his head in a childish form of protection. And he forces a laugh, forced humor, something to clear his mind, banish the fear. Laughing away the chill, it is a short laugh. For he has lost count of his days of travel, and he is now entirely lost in strange lands, and he has not spoken with another being since the Greyflood – and even then it was only his horse – and he is already imagining a pitiful death in the wild…

He falls asleep with the blanket pulled over his head.

_Alone in the wild_  
Singing lewd soldier’s songs  
Or nonsensical, rambling songs  
Loud, loud, bellowed songs  
Something to maintain sanity  
In endless, lonely despair.  
No one can hear, so he sings loud, off-key… 

_“There once was a Man from Bel-falas,_  
Short, fat and named Ma-ras  
He once had a horse,  
Named Pretty, of course,  
And…” 

_How does it go?_  
Something about lying with a horse.  
He laughs at the image. 

The ninety-fifth night he is convinced he will die. Half in delirium, half out. Chills and burning and wounds alight, like fire and darkness and… He knows enough to sense he is in fever. And he cannot sleep, cannot stand, cannot walk anymore, for his boots have dug into his ankles, no matter how much he oils the leather, and his feet are swollen, and his fresh wounds burn. Ever since the fall, the wolves, the Nine, he has weakened. And so he tosses, he turns, he shudders and clenches his teeth and feels the sweat dampening the bedroll. The foul sweat of a fever. The rotten smell of a sick, wounded Man. The fire in his shoulder, in his leg, in his hip.

And part of him laughs at the idea of dying so anonymously and ignobly. His Osgiliath officers always joked that he had a morbid sense of humor. But now his laugh is hysterical and fast and desperately echoing.

_Breaking fever,_  
Burning low, simmering, boiling,  
Suddenly cool. 

_Back on your feet, Boromir, not long now!_

On the hundred-and-ninth night, his head still feels somewhat blurred. Still recovering from the fever, still recovering from the wounds, still recovering. He lays himself down against the soft grass, stretching out with a groan. Arms crossed, staring up at the stars. Bright. They are bright tonight. An odd sort of peace. Calm. Insects chirping. Owls hooting. Wind. He listens to the wind rustling the leaves in the trees. A cool, night wind. And and and…

Music.

He stills his breathing, stills his heart. He listens. And there it is: the unmistakable night-music, as if the stars themselves sing. And the moon glowing, and the leaves rustling, and the absolute peace and beauty and and and his heart nearly bursts.

_Imladris._

He has arrived.


End file.
